Updated 10:00 pm, Monday, March 31, 2008

Analysts say it's difficult, if not impossible, for her to win the Democratic presidential nomination. Barack Obama has won more states, votes and pledged delegates to the Democratic National Convention in August. The math of the remaining contests is against Clinton's making a comeback.

Every day that she and Obama sling mud at each other is a gift for John McCain and the Republicans. Clinton, some pundits and Obama supporters say, should leave the presidential race for the sake of the party. Oh, really? Good luck with that.

It's hard to imagine the Clintons letting a little thing like reality interfere with their grand plan.

Hillary Clinton says it's unfair to suggest it's over when millions more are waiting to vote -- even though it's unlikely they can change the outcome. Clinton has heard the talk that the race is over.

"But the most common thing that people say to me," she told reporters, "is, 'Don't give up. Keep going. We're with you.' And I feel really good about that because that's what I intend to do."

Maybe people do tell Clinton to keep going. Six women in one day told her they'd changed their registration from Republican to Democratic to vote for her in Pennsylvania, she said in an interview with Time magazine. But why stop there? Maybe it was 16 women. Or 60.

A good story is more important than truth in politics. Nobody expects politicians to tell the truth anyway. We expect facts to be stretched, with an embellishment here, a flourish there.

We're asked to believe that Obama didn't know his preacher was a walking incendiary device that exploded about America, Israel, AIDS and other topics. We're asked to believe that McCain -- who rails against special interests -- was not being hypocritical when he intervened with the FCC on behalf of lobbyist Vicki Iseman's client, Paxson Communications.

But Clinton's memory is in a class by itself. Maybe people can't be certain how much policy she wrote in her husband's White House, but we know that, for ourselves, there'd be no ambiguity about being shot at by snipers.

It's baffling to imagine how she could tell a story about landing in Bosnia under sniper fire and having to run with her head down to safety, when news videos show she was greeted by a child reading a poem. Clinton says she was sleep-deprived and simply misspoke. But she told the story more than once.

The Washington Post last week reported a troubling new wrinkle to the Bosnia story. Mary Ann Akers and Paul Kane wrote that the story Clinton told actually did happen -- but not to her. Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, and six other senators did land in Tuzla under sniper fire in October 1995, six months before Clinton's trip. They did run to waiting vehicles, the Post reported.

If that's the source of Clinton's account, it raises questions about more than spin.

It looks like voters will have more time to watch Clinton. Her survival strategy is to wait for the superdelegates at the convention. She says her wins in the big states the Democrats will need in November are reason enough for superdelegates to make her the nominee.

How far is she willing to go to press her claim? She's willing to forget that change is in the air. Clinton risks being tagged as an old-style politician from an era when the moneyed elite ran the table.

Twenty of Clinton's financial backers wrote House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, demanding that she stop saying the Democratic superdelegates should support the candidate with the most pledged delegates.

Pelosi, who will be chairwoman of the national convention, hasn't endorsed either candidate, but her stand was seen as favoring Obama. Clinton's financial backers warned, ham-handedly, that they've been "strong supporters" of fundraising efforts for House Democrats in the past.

"We therefore urge you to clarify your position ... ," they wrote.

The episode surely will be sniper fire for Clinton's critics. It's one memory she'll try to forget.